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California Farmers Aren’t the Water Hogs

You wouldn’t know it from the environmentalist rhetoric, but in the agricultural business we try not to waste a drop.

By

Ted Sheely

July 29, 2015 7:05 p.m. ET

The worst thing about California’s drought is the suffering it has caused ordinary people. In many places, drinking wells have dried up. The crisis is so severe that the state has restricted water use.

The second-worst thing about the drought is how farmers are bearing most of the blame. We hear one figure over and over: Agriculture consumes 80%...